Getting my Cat from Point RO to Point USA

I have a cat in Romania. A beautiful tortoiseshell girl named Pisica (which incidentally means cat in Romanian). I adopted her in February of 2005 when she was four months old. She’s my baby. And I don’t want to leave her behind in Romania. I want her here with me.

All the Romanians laugh and say “what a lucky cat.” There are thousands of Romanians who would love to come to the States and my Romanian cat is getting a free ride. Except its not turning out to be so easy, and its certainly not free – well it is for her, but not for me.

There are a couple of ways to get a pet from Europe to the U.S. Actually there’s only one — by plane, but there are a couple of ways to go about making the plans for a pet to be sent by plane. One is to do-it-yourself.

Do-it-yourself means that you, yourself, go out and buy the airline approved kennel, and then contact the air carrier of your choice to find out about their rules for transporting pets.

An approved kennel must be hard plastic and there must be enough room for your pet to stand up erect and turn around. In addition there must be ventilation on four sides of the kennel. There are many companies that make such kennels including Vari and Sky Kennel.

Most airlines require that the kennel you use be approved by the USDA and, if you’re transporting your pet internationally, by IATA (The International Air Transport Association). IATA has a whole section on what’s required to transport pets at their Pet Corner site.

If you’re travelling from the U.S. this isn’t a bad option. Kennels are easy to find and the airlines are easy to work with. However, when you’re flying from overseas it can get harder. Especially if you’re flying from someplace like Romania. Kennels are not easy to get and airlines are harder to get in touch with and work with. I have found that it is almost impossible to find the exact kennel that’s needed in Romania. That means I have to have it shipped over from the States. Well, kennels are oversized and most companies refuse to ship oversized items. I have finally found a company (Futurepet.com) in Texas that seems willing to ship the kennel to Romania as long as I’m willing to pay — the kennel costs about $40, the shipping will cost close to $300!! However, they use UPS and they first have to check with UPS to make sure they’ll do it (even though I told them there is UPS in Romania). Anyway, they’re taking their sweet little time and my time — the time I have left to get Pisica over here — is running out.

In addition, because the flight is originating from Romania, I have to deal with an airline company that flies directly out of Romania, and I have to call the Romanian division of that airline. I had originally wanted to use Northwest Airlines because they seem to have the best to offer in pet transport but they don’t fly out of Romania; they’re partner, KLM, does. And when I called KLM, they told me I have to call the Bucharest office of KLM. Since that’s an overseas call, I’m waiting to be sure the kennel will be shipped out, which means I’m waiting on Futurepets.com to get back to me before I can call KLM Bucharest. See what I mean, about it not being so easy!

The second option for transporting a pet is using a special company that only transports pets. There are several such companies. They are expensive but offer much more accountability than the airlines and also do all the leg work for you. Originally, when I first planned to bring Pisica over I planned to use one of these companies since they all claimed they can transport pets from anywhere in the world. Well, it turns out Romania isn’t one of those places! And not because of the U.S. firm but because they can’t get their counterparts in Romania to respond!!! The U.S. firm needs someone in Romania to do the leg work in Romania (i.e. bring a kennel and pick-up the pet and bring to airport, and check-in, etc.). Well, all the companies in Romania that the U.S. firms tried to contact never responded to a single email or phone message. So the U.S. firms could do nothing for me.

Thus, I’m doing-it-myself and having a hell of a hard time doing it.

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